So we're slashing more government jobs in a Depression

We're going to merge government agencies to "cut waste and duplication". That's just brilliant. Hoover-licious. And it seems the the newly neoliberal world of DU loves it, just loves it.

Remember that FDR joker? He started programs to give people makework, just to have an excuse to give them government cash that wasn't welfare. And we can see how that bullshit worked out: unemployment dropped 40% in four years, and the economy grew at 8% a year. Those poor bastards didn't know how awful they had it, what with things getting better and all.

Thank God we don't have to worry ourselves over the prospect of unemployment dropping 40% in four years, and the economy growing at 8% a year. Bank profits would go down or some other bad thing, no doubt.

58. Then count me in as an idiot. Thanks for the namecalling, too.

13. How is it a benefit to eliminate these openings?

These are desperately needed and desirable positions that can support a family with real benefits.
The jobs are being slowly sucked out and replaced with nothing which means that input is deleted. In a time where we need direct hire jobs programs this is crazy talk. You are rowing the boat in the wrong damn direction!
Each retirement will be a like a light going off rather than a new opportunity.

Over no projectable timeframe will we have too many well paying jobs so the questions becomes who is this supposed to be benefiting and why do you want to feed a frame that sucks demand and decent jobs out of the system?

91. "taxes do not fund spending" - really?

93. At the federal level, worker wages and benefits are paid..

by crediting accounts with a computer. The money isn't taken out of tax receipts. There is no store of collected tax monies (would that even make sense?). In fact, when you pay your taxes, the money you give to the government is simply destroyed - physical cash is mostly shredded and electronic cash is erased from the system.

The US has a sovereign fiat currency. Our federal government spends money into existence and taxes money out of existence. Our government does not need to tax (or borrow) to spend.

77. Right..

imagine how horrible things would be if he had listened to those idiot critics who warned that the stimulus was insufficient, big finance was out of control, unemployment was a more serious threat than the deficit and trying to compromise with Republicans was a waste of time.

29. Thats an issue that I think we all agree needs to be addressed.

78. "The money can be used better elsewhere to create jobs that are not "waste and duplication"."

Again, this demonstrates a basic lack of understanding on your part.

It isn't necessary to cut federal employment levels to "free up" money for use elsewhere. These cuts will only have the effect of removing real money from the real economy. There may indeed be "waste and duplication", but large portions of our economy now seem to be built on waste and duplication. Without a plan in place to increase spending in advance of these cuts, the economy will take a hit.

34. we???

37. ...

"Living next to you is in some ways like sleeping with an elephant. No matter how friendly and even-tempered is the beast, if I can call it that, one is affected by every twitch and grunt." - Pierre Trudeau

67. precisely

79. Actually, the term depression does not have a specific, universally agreed upon meaning.

Its usage has varied over the decades, and it continues to be a point of contention among academics, scholars, economists and journalists.

Our current global malaise meets mot of the generic qualifiers for economic depression. It's actually worse in many notable ways than some previous economic downturns which have been widely labeled as depressions.

33. The conspiracy is just as serious a crime as the act.

26. It sure would be nice if more jobs were created at the same time

This time in history is perfect for getting rid of excess spending but only if more jobs are being created than jobs being eliminated. It could be done just in combating and adjusting to creating an industry for alternate sources of energy making our dependence on oil a rapidly diminishing reality.

It is so obvious. Even Idiocrats should be able to follow the logic. Sigh...

50. What you say about the DLC is true, but "DLC" does not stand for Democratic LIBERALS ...

Even then, while the union-busting activities and calls for "free trade" by the DLC have been going on for some time, the call for so-called smaller government in the manner of Republicans is only a recent event.

52. Post #35 was white hot sarcasm.

DU is over run by DLC/New "dem"/third wayer's. They applaud each and every one of Obama's adoption of RW policies. They have attempted to take the label of "liberal Dem" and "progressive". Some even resort to grade school word games with 'progressive' to twist the meaning of the platform to suit their agenda. I'm sick of it. They need to GTFO out of the Dem party. They don't have to go home (republican party), but they can't stay here.

41. Stop twisting: this is about re-organizing and coordination, not cutting jobs

The reason behind it is that since Congress took away the executive's discretion to organize agencies, the powerful committee chairmen have set up a rat's nest of arcane, special interest agencies, under the control of their committee rather than another one, to protect interests of their big donors; the huge corporations can hire the lawyers to negotiate this maze of purposefully confusing bureaus--the accretions of years of individual senators' and committees' actions--but smaller businesses tear their hair out and become totally lost in the shuffle from one agency, with one set of rules, to the next.

With respect to commerce, for example, Obama is proposing the following:

President Barack Obama called on Congress to let him streamline the executive branch and proposed consolidating six agencies dealing with trade and commerce to give businesses a single government contact point.

The plan would eliminate the Commerce Department and consolidate its core functions in a new, yet unnamed department that would include the U.S. Trade Representative, the Export- Import Bank, the Overseas Private Investment Corp., the Trade and Development Agency and the Small Business Administration.

The department also would include a new Division of Statistics housing the Bureau of Labor Statistics, which reports monthly unemployment figures, and the Bureau of Economic Analysis, which tracks data from the gross domestic product and consumer spending to corporate profit to the balance of trade.

We'll still need most all of those workers who run the US Trade Rep's office, the Export-Import Bank, the Overseas Private Investment Corp., the Trade and Development Agency, and the SBA: it's just that they won't be run out of different places, uncoordinated one from the other, and under the thumb of various different Congressional committees.

45. I think the government should hire ALL the unemployed

if they paid them each 60K a year, then he will have fixed unemployment, put a huge dent in poverty, and probably largely fix the mortgage crisis as well. It sounds like such a simple plan, I wonder why they don't do it?

46. That‘s roughly what FDR did

51. In addition to FDR, even Nixon was smart enought to realize that putting money in the hands

of the impoverished not only benefited them but the country as a whole.

Of course, Nixon didn't propose the Guaranteed Annual Assistance in 1969 (aka the Family Assistance Plan) out of the kindness of his heart. He and Congress, along with the Senators who almost passed it, may have been spurred by the Watts' riots of 1965 and other riot-related activities.

We've been told that Obama is smart. His proposal for governmental employment for those who need it in a time of a recession or depression doesn't seem to verify that.

We've seen no evidence that the trickle-down theory works, nor has he. We've also seen no evidence that globalization works. He hasn't seen that either, unless he's looking at it from the perspective of those from the 1% who have served as his chiefs of staffs and other members of the 1%.

85. And the economy would totally tank.

Everyone would become unemployed so the government would have to hire everyone and with what money since there would be no one in the private sector. Also there are many jobs in the public sector which would have to raise there salaries -- and with what money? From where? Math and economics are NOT your friends.

75. +1! Bashers have NO credibility any longer, it's hard to have open critisim of Obama because of them

68. As far as I can see, this wouldn't lower aggregate demand at all. The debt ceiling deal for all

intents and purposes fixed the amount of discretionary spending for the next 10 years.

So if we save 3 billion over 10 years with this proposal, then 3 billion would be spent elsewhere in the discretionary spending budget.

Furthermore, even if this somehow did affect aggregate demand, FDR did what he did when aggregate demand was dangerously low. Obama is doing so over a long 10-year period, where the vast majority of the attrition will be during a time when we are not in a liquidity trap. A time where money spent on X is indeed money that cannot be spent on Y, for which removing waste and duplication is a net plus.

And the idea that the economy would grow at 8% a year is a fantasy. That happened in the depression because unemployment was multiple times what it is now, and the economy contracted by one third. It is much, much easier to hit those numbers when you are 33% below potential output.

Your argument seems to be (and you can correct me if I'm wrong) that it never makes sense to cut waste and duplication. While that is indeed what Republicans accuse Democrats of believing (to great electoral effect), it is not an economically-sound argument. Both Keynes and FDR would be horrified that their work was being used to make that argument.

80. Trying to have it both ways, aren't you?

The official said 1,000 to 2,000 jobs would be cut, but the administration would do so through attrition; that is, as people routinely leave their jobs over time.

The administration said the merger would save $3 billion over 10 years by getting rid of duplicative overhead costs, human resources divisions and programs.

The point, the official said, is not just making the government smaller but better by saving people time and eliminating bureaucratic nightmares. The idea for the consolidated business agency grew out of discussions with hundreds of business leaders and agency heads over the last several months.

If the money is just to be put to another use, then they can't claim to be saving "$3 billion over 10 years". Consolidation naturally implies a reduction in outlays. Why would you assume they plan to spend the money they are "saving" (a completely absurd framing, in and of itself, but I'll leave it alone) on some other project?

87. Look at the debt ceiling deal.

It basically set discretionary spending levels for the next 10 years. For example, this year, the amount of discretionary spending was equal to what the debt limit deal said for this year, despite the tea party revolt.

As I'm sure you are aware, discretionary spending is set through the appropriations process. They first decide the total amount spent, and then they decide how that money is distributed. Just because money is saved in one area doesn't mean it isn't spent in another.